Diary of a Drug Fiend

322 The Diary of a Drug Fiend “Yes, I see that all right,”’ said Lou, “ and I know Basil too well to make that kind of fool of myself. But I’m still a little worried about this horrid efficiency of yours. Whatever am I to do with myself? Don’t you understand that it was really boredom or the dread of it that drove me to heroin to pass away the time ? ” “ That’s just it,”’ said Athena very seriously. ‘ This is all kinds of a place for driving a fellow to drink. And that’s why the Big Lion insists on our going through the mill. But it takes us a very short time to realise that there is not enough heroin in the world to tide us over a single day in such a ghastly place, so we quit.” Here was another of Basil’s paradoxes in full working order. But they came quite differently from the lips of a steady-going serious-minded person of this kind. The personality of the Big Lion is his greatest asset in one way, but in another it handicaps him frightfully. His cynical manner, his habitual irony, the sensation he produces that he is making fun of one; all these make one inclined to dismiss everything that he says as ‘‘mere paradox” without investigation. Lamus is too clever by half; but Sister Athena spoke with such simple earnestness and directness that although she too had a sense of humour of her own, Basil’s ideas were very much more effective when they had passed through the machinery of her mind than when they frothed fresh from his. I had always been inclined to distrust King Lamus. It was impossible to distrust this woman who trusted him, or to doubt that she was right to trust him.” He never seemed able even to take himself seriously, perhaps because he was afraid of appearing pompous or a prig; but she had taken him seriously and got the best out of him. “ Well, Sister Athena,” said Lou, “‘ if even heroin’s no good, what is?” “ T’m afraid I'll have to treat you to another paradox,” she said, lighting a cigarette. ‘‘ I’m afraid that at first sight you'll think there must be something wrong. It’s